The combined might of Hollywood's greatest action heroes can't survive against Sylvester Stallone's inflated ego in The Expendables 3.

Stallone has a long history of taking a great premise & draining the life out of it with one sequel after another. Much like Rocky & First Blood before it, the first Expendables was a watershed event in Stallone's career & in itself a good action movie, combining Stallone's action hero might with that of Jason Statham, Jet Li & a slew of others.

Yet two sequels in and that magic is gone, a combination of greed driven decision making in watering down the violence for a younger audience (the first film was a hard R), and a decrease in screen time for a roster of stars sitting on the bench while Stallone plays ball hog.

It's a damn, damn shame. With the additions of promising young director Patrick Hughes (Red Hill), Stallone's Demolition Man co-star Wesley Snipes, Harrison freakin Ford as a ball-breaking CIA agent and Mel freakin Gibson as the villain, there was much potential for The Expendables 3 to at least surpass the lacklustre sequel. Alas it's another case of lots of ammo fired, but only half of its targets hit.

As per tradition The Expendables 3 opens with a bang, with squad leader Barney Ross (Stallone) and his merry band of mercenaries (Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Coultre, Terry Crews) breaking out an original member of their crew from a black ops prison, the aptly named Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes).

Soon these muscle bound mercenaries find themselves up against another original Expendable long thought dead, ruthless arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson).

In many ways the addition of former Mad Max star Gibson is a coup, for while he is an established action superstar who still has the goods (as evident in Get the Gringo), he also brings a dramatic weight that enhances dialogue driven scenes, which previous baddies Jean Claude Van-Damme & Eric Roberts could not do.

It makes the limited use of such a prized pick-up like Gibson all that more frustrating, and points to a major weakness in this action franchise: poor time management.

In a ridiculous plot point, the decision to have Statham, Lundgren & Snipes replaced by young blood such as Twilight behemoth Kellan Lutz & UFC stars Rhonda Rousey & Victor Ortiz, is a poor one. Sure these young bucks can throw a punch, but they can’t substitute the grizzly swagger that a Jason Statham (frustratingly wasted here) brings to the table.

Of course the one consistent is Stallone himself, the wily veteran making sure he appears with both old and young versions of Expendables. Yet like a brick cell phone next to the latest iPhone, Stallone’s bulking, broken frame stands out more than ever when playing war with these Gen Y “action stars”, and is the strongest case yet that father-time has caught up with Sly, and there is no punching his way out of that fact.

There are some positives to be found in The Expendables 3. Antonio Banderas and Harrison Ford (who netted a cool $3 million for four days work) do there darndest to bring some pop to this stale pop-corn movie, the former with jovial physicality and the latter with grizzled dry wit. Gibson (even though given limited screen time) is great as the villain, and a final battle sequence consisting of explosions, rapid gunfire and fisticuffs does raise pulses, even if stylistically speaking Hughes’ handling of the material is no different to what Simon West did in The Expendables 2.

In the end it’s all for nought. With The Expendables, Stallone reminded us why ‘80s action movies were great fun. By the end of The Expendables 3, he also reminded how egos made the genre stale and generic. If another mission is on the cards, Stallone needs to seriously rethink his game plan.